Thursday, 25 June 2015

The Little Dragon Costume

I spent the day on Sunday sewing for my 5 year old. He has NEVER in his life worn a costume before. He is not a dress up kind of kiddie - in fact, he has always run from costumes. Until this week...

It's his first Book Week at school...and he wanted to go as a character from his favourite dragon book. Hmmm...how to make a dragon costume...

Long story short - this is how it turned out...

I think he looked pretty adorable! Plus it was practical - freezing cold winter weather, and easy for him to get in and out of himself. All in sweatshirt fleece...

What is it? In reality just a hoodie, and a pair of trackpants. I took the Tie Dye Diva Hello Hoodie and Snazzy Pants patterns as the basis, in a size 5 - which fits perfectly.

I drafted a set of wings, which I sewed into the arm and side seams of the outer layer of the hoodie (it is fully lined). I made them full enough so that his arms could go straight up and still not have his movement restricted.

I extended the centre back of the hoodie (both outer and liner) down to include a "tail". The wings collapse down nicely (helped by the veining detail I added).

And I added a row of spikes all the way down from the top of his head to the bottom of the tail, and a couple of extra spikes at the bottom sides to form the end of the tail

Obligatory tail wiggle photo... :)

You can see he has full movement here (important for little jumping beans like him). I added three spikes to the front bottom hem of each leg for dragon claws...